virus: Confession (warning: this is rather long)

From: athe nonrex (athenonrex@godisdead.com)
Date: Sun May 18 2003 - 18:15:41 MDT

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    ~Preface~

    though we find ourselves in this contrived religion of ours,
    and we renounce the "natural" memetic doctrines of other faiths,
    mostly for the fact they take the pretense that their religion('s doctrines)
    are in fact unique and natural and true, etc... how am i, how are we,
    any less like these other religeions at our base? we still have our
    sins, and we still have our virtues; we have no clergy, which in a
    sense makes us all clergy; we have no morals save for the morals that
    we create for ourselves, and we try to keep those morals to ourselves,
    not judging eachother and others by our personal standards... save for
    those few details, how is our base concept any different than other
    religions?

    and it is for this purpose that i find it necessary to engauge in
    confession, as we are all (somewhat) clergymen/clergywomen in this
    church, and we do have our sins. and it is my purpose to confess my sins
    to you clergy of the CoV, as i have sinned. i find myself guilty of
    apathy, dogmatism (the least of my sins), and of hypocracy. there are
    other "lesser" or "minor" sins that i feel i have commited as well. not
    to imply that i am a bad person or a bad virian, but rather that i have
    not reached the non existent state of perfection that many strive for.
    also not to imply that i do not follow the virtues of reason, vision and
    empathy, but when i find myself sinning, i notice that i also find it
    more difficult to continue practicing these vitures of mine.

    to change yourself you must first realize that you have qualitites or
    behavioural patterns you wish to change, so this is step one. step two
    consists of reasoning why you have these qualitites; step three combines
    the realization of these qualities, the desire to change, realization of
    why you posses these qualities, as well as the conscious effort to
    change. i ask not you clergy for forgiveness or repentance, but rather
    to hear me out so that i might be able to change myself...

    ~Apathy~

    i find myself constantly guilty of apathy. this is such a broad thing
    for me, so i shall narrow it down. i find myself refusing to care about
    outcome of a situation (for example) when i know that i can make it a
    positive outcome for myself and even others if i put effort into it,
    merely because i lack the will to expend that effort, for fear that it
    infact won't turn out the way i would like it to. this expouses two of
    the "lesser" sins i spoke of: fear and laziness.

    ~fear~

    fear is a rampant lesser sin in everyone's life. it's impossible to
    excape the feeling of fear, so i consider the feeling of fear to not be
    a sin in and of itself, but rather allowing fear to control you and your
    actions. i notice myself doing this on a regular basis. i second guess
    my intuitive decicions, and even my thought out, well organized and
    reasonable conclusions. i find myself second guessing my second guesses.
    i even catch myself from time to time second guessing those second
    guesses. this is all done of of my fear, and allowing it to control my
    actions. for this i have sinned.

    consequently, i consider courage to be the adjacent "lesser" virtue of
    fear. (perhaps we should revise the sins and virtues to include agreed
    upon "lesser" sins and virtues?) courage not being the absence of fear,
    but rather the ability to walk through fear and overcome the urge to
    allow your actions (or rather inactions) to be out of fear.

    ~laziness~

    laziness is also another lesser sin i am guilty of (as i just mentioned). (the appropriate adjacent "lesser" virtue for this i would
    imagine would be along the lines of "motivation" or "initiative.")
    the utter lack of motivation, bred by my fear, i feel in many areas of
    my life will eventually be my undoing and my ultimate sin of apathy.

    ~After note on Apathy~

    i notice these three sins in tandem all too often in others, and as of
    late, in myself as well. true it is a bit ironic and antithetical that
    apathy, a lack of emotion, would breed the emotional state of fear, but
    then i find many antithetical concepts to be true. tangent.

    ~dogma~

    though i will preach out against dogma, i notice that (1) i still have
    my own lingering dogma of my former christian upbringing and that
    (2) i am allowing my personal ideas and values to become a sort of
    dogma in and of themselves.

    like i said, dogma is the least of my sins, but i am still guilty of it.

    ~hypocracy~

    where do i begin? i'm a huge fucking hypocrite. i quite possibly am one
    of the best sources of advice for my friends and family, and even for
    total strangers. whatever the situation, i find myself able to give
    someone invaluable advice, full of insight and of compassion and of
    empathy. but for some strange reason (i think previously stated sins may
    have some accountability for this), i cannot seem to give myself advice
    and stick to it. i'm afraid of my own medicine, but i feel no hesitation
    to prescribe my medicines to others.

    i also have a habit of breeding large amounts of confusion for myself.
    whereas i do not consider confusion a sin, it is definitely a symptom
    of one of our sins. (side note, treating the sypmtom instead of the
    cause is far easier and far more appealing, but as we all know:
    treating the symptoms instead of the illness doesn't make the illness
    go away and the symptoms come back in time anyway.) philosophically, i
    fall closest to the existencial ideology of relativism and solipsism;
    i do not believe that anything is absolute and that therefore anything
    could (according to context) be appropriate and proper.

    this breeds a mass of confusion for me at times. example: the ethical
    awareness that innocent people should not be killed, versus the
    statistical awareness that there needs to be population control in an
    extreem degree. so a bus full of children die and i hear about it: do
    i laugh out of my sense of reason, or do i cry out of my sense of
    empathy?

    ~After note on Hypocracy~
     
    my hypocracy isn't an intentional and singular sin. i feel that my
    hypocracy is the result of my apathy, fear, laziness and pity (pity
    being another one of those "lesser" sins, and often confused with
    compassion, the relative "lesser" virtue).

    ~quick side note on lesser virtues and sins~

    lesser virtues and sins seem to be products of a particular sin or
    virtue, making them i suppose not necessarily sins or virtues in and of
    themselves, but more like symptoms. however, i suggested the whole
    adding them to the sins/ virtues lists for the purpose of recognization
    and realization. if we classify them under the appropriate "major" sins/
    virtues, then one is more likely to realize that they are commiting one
    of the major sins, and can find the appropriate virtues to try and apply
    to change their actions if that is what is sought.

    ~epilogue~

    like i said, i am not looking for your forgiveness. if you understand
    that or not is not important. these are things that i have had need to
    acknowledge and reason out, so that i may change the fact that i
    behave this way. i would hope to see others realize sins that they are
    committing, and change their actions accordingly. whether or not people
    follow suit with my confessional, or with my proposed amendment to the
    sins/virtues doesn't particularly matter to me either, so long as i
    might be able to help someone else, as well as myself, by saying these
    things.

    as much as me claim that we are different than these other religions,
    and as much as we may believe differently, act differently, speak
    differently, and live differently than they do, some of the things that
    they do are still useful tools that can be emploied by ourselves for
    self improvement. not to say that we should become more christian or
    more buddhist, or more this or that...but rather that we should become
    more virian at the least, and more ourselves at the best.

    may my heart be rational and my mind be passionate.

    -Athe'Nonrex

    "i envision a different man, than the one i've become/
    pray the ocean will undetstand, that my time isn't done/
    everyone's leading but nobody's dancing/
    we stand on this stage to turn all alone/
    i've been waiting this way for a lifetime of days."
    -"morning sun", savatage (from the CD "Wake of Megellan")

    (with a little effort, i intend to kick my legs up and start dancing)

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